Fifty Ways to Kill Your Lover
by Mikkeneko
Summary: Fai can't get Kurogane out of his dreams. Kuro/Fai, Outo spoilers, written for the kuroxfai Fluff vs. Angst Olympics. WARNING: INTENSE VIOLENCE.
1. Fifty Ways to Kill Your Lover

**Title**: Fifty Ways to Kill Your Lover  
><strong>Rating<strong>: M  
><strong>Trigger warning: <strong>This story contains several scenes of intense violence, some in a domestic or sexual situation. If you are sensitive to that sort of thing, please do not read this fic.  
><strong>Summary<strong>: Fai can't get Kurogane out of his mind. Spoilers for up to Outo.

**Author's Note: **This was written as an entry for the Fluff/Angst Olympics on the kuroxfai community on LJ, in support of Team Angst. If you want to see the rest of the entries, go check them out this week on the comm!

The 'unemployed world' from the final scene is taken from the TRC anime - those who have seen it may remember it as the episode where Sakura took all those odd jobs in order to save enough money to buy the feather of that world.

* * *

><p>He dreamed that he was back in Celes, seated in his old armchair before the fire. He was puzzling over the text open in his lap, written in the flowing rune language of Celes, but he couldn't seem to make out what it said. Fai remembered that since he started his journey he had not been able to read any of the written words in any world they had visited, but it made him sad, because this was a book he would very much have liked to be able to read.<p>

The door to his chamber opened, and Kurogane came in; that itself ought to have tipped Fai off that he was dreaming, but in the logical way of dreams, it did not seem strange at all to see the ninja of Nihon standing in his bedchamber. Nor did he question it when Kurogane crossed the room in swift strides and sat beside him in front of the fire, his hands covering Fai's on the leatherbound tome and closing the book, firmly pushing it aside.

In the dream, at least, Kurogane kissed slow but deep, forceful and demanding. Fai gave way to him gracefully, letting Kurogane press him onto his back on the duvet - and when had his old armchair grown enough to let two adult men lie on it? - and pull off the fastenings of his clothes. Pleasure flitted across his skin, up his sides and down his stomach at Kurogane's touch; he moaned throatily and arched his spine into the touches, reaching up to pull at Kurogane's clothes too.

The clothes soon vanished, and Kurogane's limbs wrapped around him, flickering in the firelight; he was hot as a furnace, leaving Fai panting and nearly delirious with the heat. Kurogane's hand closed about his erection, pulling them together, and his grip was so _hotwetpullyesmorenow _that Fai writhed into the touch. He wanted more, he wanted _this;_ he wanted more of _Kurogane._

The other man growled something unintelligible against his mouth - was he speaking his own language? Or was Fai just too lost in the heat of passion to understand him? - and bit down on Fai's lower lip, and the small spike of pain shot down his spine to his groin. Fai let out a low groan, and his hands scrabbled against the other man's back, nails digging into the sweat-slick skin. More - more, yes - he was -

He came, in a wave of blissful sensation that crashed against him from head to toes. He collapsed back against the duvet, into the suffocating heat that came from being sandwiched between the blankets, the fire, and Kurogane. Kurogane was still over him, solid and heavy and still waiting.

"Kuro…?" Fai inquired, breathless and languid and bliss-washed. He wondered if Kurogane had not yet come, although he didn't still seem to be wanting. Without another word the larger man sat back, firelight shifting over his skin, as he reached over Fai's head for something that scraped and clanked heavily against the brick of the hearth.

Without changing his expression in the slightest. Kurogane reared back and brought his arm around, and thrust the point of the heavy metal poker through Fai's torso, right underneath his breastbone. Fai spasmed in agony, a strangled croak escaping his throat as he clutched at the wound, feeling the shocking sudden weight and _wrongness _of that alien object piercing inside him -

* * *

><p>Fai awoke with a shuddering gasp, knees hitching up as his hands clutched tight into the sheets beneath him. After a moment he rolled over and sat up, trembling and cold in the darkness, lit only by faint specks of light from the window, from under the hallway door. His tense hands clawed over his midsection, seeking the deadly wound that had pierced him - there was nothing, though he could still feel the pain of the mortal wound, the sharp metal hardness violating his flesh. Nothing there.<p>

It was a dream, he thought, just a dream. A nightmare.

He'd had nightmares before, of course; had them for years as a child, of the empty pit with the pile of bodies, of his twin's dead face staring accusingly from the pile of snow. Ashura had comforted him, many times, when he'd woken up sobbing from the dull crushing despair of the dreamscape that he could no longer bear. Gradually, as the peaceful years had passed in Celes, he'd outgrown them.

But they'd never been like this before. Never so vivid; he could still feel the heat, smell the sweat of Kurogane's skin, and he flushed as he darted a furtive glance over to the other side of the room where his companion still slept. Safely over there, far out of reach. There was nothing to fear here.

Still, although he lay back down on his stomach, he could still feel the throbbing pain of the wound where the metal had pierced his skin; and he knew he would not be sleeping again tonight.

* * *

><p>He'd first started noticing Kurogane after the second jump between worlds. Syaoran and Sakura had gone out to the town to collect supplies, leaving himself alone with the strange dark man, ostensibly with the mission to repair the broken roof. It was the first quiet moment he'd had to sit and collect himself in days - weeks - months, really, since the killings in Celes had spiked so unbearably high.<p>

It was something of a surprise even to himself that he should spend this moment drinking tea and admiring, from this perspective, the toned muscles and tanned skin of Kurogane's body. From the very-brief contact they'd sometimes had in passing, he knew that Kurogane's skin burned like a furnace. What would it be like to wrap himself around Kurogane and cuddle close, huddling like a child on a winter hearth? Making love to Kurogane… What would it be like?

He felt guilty for these kinds of thoughts. Not because it was invasive of Kurogane's privacy - after all, Kurogane would never have to know - but because he felt disloyal to Ashura, and to Fai. He knew he didn't deserve dreams of happiness, or of pleasure, after all of the things he'd done and failed to do. He knew that he was a liar, and a cheat, and a traitor - someday he would have to betray these people, and he would even have to kill this man, who was a good man, a far better man than himself. No, he of all people did not deserve someone like Kurogane. The last thing he ought to be doing was dreaming of love.

Why Kurogane? Fai found himself wondering. He tried to watch him, sometimes, when he thought Kurogane wouldn't notice; tried to figure out the inexplicable attraction. Why Kurogane? And why now? He'd never been attracted that way to a man before - he'd never been attracted that way to _anyone_ before. In Celes all his emotional horizons had been taken up with his brother and with Ashura, neither of which had been an appropriate outlet for these kinds of urges.

In the court at Ceres there had been no lack of handsome, eligible men; many of them far more beautiful than this rough, gruff warrior of Nihon. If he'd wanted a lover he could have had one then, back when he had a life there; surrounded by elegant courtiers in expensive, elegant clothing, with perfectly coiffed hair and painted skin. In contrast, Kurogane was… dull, and plain, with his scar-scuffed skin, his spiky, unkempt crest of hair, and his brusque and unapologetic _lack_ of manners. He wasn't beautiful; compared to Ashura, Fai told himself firmly, he wasn't even particularly handsome.

And yet… and yet… there was something about Kurogane that thrilled him, caught his gaze, that stuck in his mind and would not let him rest. The piercing, unsettling sharpness of his ruby red gaze, that lingered far too long on Fai and seemed to tear right through every one of his veils. The proud, sharply defined bones of his face, the heavy corded muscle and sinew of his neck and shoulders and arms. Kurogane was much bigger and bulkier than Fai himself was, with the promise of enormous strength lurking just under his skin. The promise of furious violence lurking just behind his eyes. He couldn't forget the strange, disturbing turn of his latest dream; the sudden, jolting transition from dreamy, decadent pleasure to deadly violence.

Was it lust that Fai felt when he looked at Kurogane, that quickened his breath and heightened his pulse, made his hands and face tingle and his loins tighten? Was this attraction?

Or was it fear?

* * *

><p>Fai took the plate out of the sink, where it had been soaking in a tub full of soapy water, and ran it briefly under the tap to rinse it in clear water before setting it in the drying rack with the others. While it wasn't as efficient as doing it by magic he had to admit, the worlds with indoor plumbing that piped in hot and cold fresh water made cooking and cleaning up afterwards a <em>lot<em> easier.

He heard the step behind him at the same time a pair of large, warm arms engulfed him from behind. A hand reached up and stroked through his hair, tied back with a rag to keep it out of his face while he worked. Fai smiled and leaned back into Kurogane's embrace, although with his soaked and soapy hands, he didn't immediately reach back to return the caress.

"Huh," Kurogane rumbled from behind him. "You're starting to take this 'Mommy' joke a little bit too seriously, don't you think?"

"The dishes need to be done, Kuro-tan," Fai said airily, setting the now-clean bowl in his hand on the counter with the others, and briefly rinsing his hands to clean them of soap. That done, he pushed Kurogane far enough back that he could turn around and lean back against the counter, smiling up at the other man. "There's nothing particularly masculine or feminine about the chore. Surely you're not suggesting we should force Sakura-chan to do all the cooking and cleaning around here?"

Kurogane snorted the suggestion away, leaning forward to nuzzle Fai's hair, inhaling deeply. His body pressed Fai's back against the counter, and Fai breathed in deeply, inhaling the scent of his body. "Got nothing to do with the dishes," Kurogane scoffed. "It's you. Getting all domestic…"

"Ooh, I think Kuro-daddy has a bit of a maid fetish, then," Fai grinned, rocking his hips forward to rub his groin against Kurogane's. While he was not fully erect yet, there was a definite hardness to be found there. "Kinky…"

"I'm not the kinky one," Kurogane protested, leaning back far enough to glare down into Fai's face. "It's not my fault you look like a freaking housewife…"

Fai laughed breathlessly, rocking forward to kiss Kurogane, his hands diving to wiggle down the front of Kurogane's pants. His hands were still a little slick from the water and dish soap, and he felt Kurogane stiffen like he'd been shocked when he slid his fingers down the front of Kurogane's underwear, outlining the damp heat within. "Kinky," he breathed against Kurogane's lips.

This time Kurogane didn't even bother to deny it; he dove in and kissed Fai fiercely and hungrily, his hands sweeping across Fai's lower back to knead his ass, sliding under his tight pants to pull his cheeks apart. Fai laughed and moaned and shivered, caught deliciously in Kurogane's grip, and didn't even want to consider the possibility of objecting.

"Off," Kurogane growled in his ear, but apparently he didn't mean that Fai should get off him; instead, he worked Fai's pants down around his knees, then put his big hands around the smaller man's hips and lifted him a few inches off the floor to prop him against the edge of the counter. Fai obligingly balanced there, grabbing the edge with both hands while he kicked his pants to the floor and was glad he'd not been wearing shoes.

Kurogane leaned around him, an adorable abstracted frown on his face and he rummaged in the cabinet over Fai's head; he returned a few moments later with a small glass bottle in his hand, and Fai tsked in mock disappointment as he poured the clear substance over his palm and fingers. "That's _cooking_ oil, Kuro-tan," he objected. "We're supposed to _eat _with that stuff."

"Not any more," Kurogane said brusquely, and managed to undo his own pants and pull out his erection without spilling oil all down the front of his trousers, which dexterity Fai admired. He took a few moments to stroke himself, getting his cock well lubed up, while Fai stretched his legs and balanced precariously on the edge of the sink and felt his mouth go dry and his cock ache in anticipation.

Kurogane looped his arm around the small of Fai's back and eased him forward, and Fai transferred his grip to Kurogane's shoulders instead, for balance. He hissed slightly at the burn as he impaled himself slowly on Kurogane's cock, but it didn't really hurt; more of an uncomfortably warm itch. And Kurogane's face was pressed against the junction of his neck, hot breath washing over his collarbone and chest, and Kurogane's hand closed around his cock and pumped. Fai gasped and threw his head back, hips tilting as he tried to writhe _into_ the sensation, and Kurogane's brief triumphant 'heh' was almost lost to the thudding of blood in Kurogane's ears.

The sharp edge of the counter dug painfully against his back, and his feet barely touched the floor even on tip-toes, but it was so good, so sweet, so hot and glorious that Fai rode it out to the end and came first, hands digging into Kurogane's shoulders hard enough to leave marks through his shirt. Kurogane ignored it and kept going, pumping into Fai's body with a heated, increased rhythm until he came too and growled against Fai's collarbone as he did so.

Fai was sitting on the very edge of the sink full of water; he could feel warm soapy water trickling down the backs of his legs. He sighed and wriggled his way free of Kurogane's grip, his feet setting back on the tile floor and feeling around cautiously for his discarded clothes. "See, you wouldn't really want Sakura to take over the chore of doing the dishes, would you?" he teased, reaching up one hand to ruffle through Kurogane's spiky hair.

There was no response. Puzzled, Fai tried to push away far enough to look into Kurogane's face, but the ninja's arms only tightened around him, pinning him back against the counter. One hand traveled up Fai's back, lightly trailing over his spine, and gripped firmly at the hair at the back of his neck.

Kurogane raised his head, and his expression was blank, remote, and mercilessly. Terror dropped an icy dagger through Fai's windpipe to his stomach, and he tried to push away, but it was too late. Kurogane's fist tightened brutally in his hair, yanking his head back, and in a wrenching movement Kurogane spun him around and smashed him face-first into the sink full of water.

Fai struggled as best he could, but Kurogane had gotten a grip on his arm and was twisting it painfully behind his back. Pain lanced through Fai's chin and lower lip as they were smashed against the unyielding porcelain, and he tasted blood as a tooth cracked loose. He couldn't breathe. He tried desperately to get his face above the water, gasp for air, but Kurogane's weight bore down on him mercilessly, grinding him into the basin of the sink.

Blood and soap and water all combined to sear into his lungs and Fai choked, splashing everywhere as his feet slipped over the soaking tile. He twisted his head as far as he could; not far enough to reach the air, but through the blurred, cloudy water he caught a glimpse of Kurogane's face; cold, implacable, _drowning_-

* * *

><p>Fai awoke with a gasp, and thrust his hands out in front of him, pushing away from the pillow. His chest heaved as he sucked in lungfulls of free air, sweat running down his neck and chest like dishwater.<p>

He could still taste bitter soap in his mouth. He sat back, trembling, and brought his hands up to his face; his lower jaw still throbbed, where he'd bitten through his lip and shattered the crowns of his teeth, but his teeth were whole and undamaged. No blood.

He darted a furtive, terrorized glance over to Kurogane's side of the room - they were sharing a room again, as they always seemed to be defaulted into. But there was no movement; Kurogane did not seem to have awoken.

Gradually Fai lay back down - on his back, this time, not able to bear the stifling pressure of sleeping on his chest as he normally did. He stared wide-eyed into the dark shadows of the ceiling overhead, the creaking play of moonlight through shifting branches.

This was getting out of hand.

* * *

><p>The dreams came more often now; they went from being once in a week, to every other night, to two nights out of every three. Always the same format; always Kurogane would come to him in his dreams and they would have sex. No, Fai admitted, he had to be honest with himself if no one else; they would make love. It was more than just hard, animalistic urges that he indulged in during those dreams.<p>

In the dreams Kurogane would touch him intimately - tenderly, with a conscientious care that seemed out of place on the practical warrior - and they would make love. Not always the same way. Most nights, Fai dreamed that Kurogane fucked him; some nights he dreamed of blowjobs or handjobs, and at least once he'd gloried in the dream of topping Kurogane, instead.

But after the sex was over, it always took the same turn. Night after night - Fai thought he should have learned, but he never remembered what was coming until it was too late. Without any sign or warning Kurogane would turn on him and the dream would end in shocking, brutal violence, Fai waking shivering from the ringing memory of his own death at Kurogane's hands.

Why, why had Fai's unconscious mind decided to fixate on him? He had far too much to lose, and Kurogane was more dangerous to him than any of the others - not just dangerous for his bloody-edged sword and the bunched muscles that could punch through warded stone walls, but dangerous to _him. _Because Kurogane _looked. _Kurogane _saw_ things, and he didn't dare let the distance between them close, lest Kurogane look and see right through _him._

Fai had seen that sword in action. Seen how effortlessly he hacked his enemies to pieces, seen how his expression was transformed with ecstasy when he was presented with a foe to cut down, and the brutal efficiency of his executions. Kurogane was, once in action, a perfect symphony of deadly grace. Why did Fai's mind insist on conjuring up steamy, pornographic fantasies about such a volatile and dangerous man, if they were just going to degenerate into savage violence and death?

He puzzled obsessively over possible meanings for the dreams. Was it some manner of psychic attack, being sent to him as a threat or warning by some enemy? Although he had to allow for the possibility, he quickly dismissed it. Aside from Ashura - whom he well knew was still bound in magical sleep - he had no magical enemies; even the dark magician who tracked their progress through the worlds was Fai's secret ally, lying in wait, and would have no motive to interfere with him.

If not as attack, then were the dreams a warning of some kind? A message sent by another dreamseer? Fai considered this possibility longer, but ultimately dismissed it too. He'd spent enough time near Ashura to know that dreamseers did not need to work in such oblique or disguised terms; if they wanted to speak with you in a dream, then they would, and let all phantoms of the sleeping mind be banished at their coming.

The other possibility that he considered, even more disturbing, was that the visions were coming from inside himself - his own prophetic dream of the future. But that could not be; the visions were different every time, with only the themes of death and violence remaining constant. True future dreams, he again knew from Ashura, stayed unwaveringly the same every time they were dreamed, unless the dreamer could find some way to alter the future, which was almost impossible.

Most likely and most depressingly, the dreams need have no magical source at all in order to be a vision or a warning of the future. It took no uncanny foresight to know, as Fai knew, that some day in the future their paths which had journeyed side by side so far would turn at cross-purposes. He would betray them, he already knew; and Kurogane was not the sort of man who would forgive such a betrayal.

Inevitably, sooner or later, they would have to fight, and he would find himself on the sharp end of Kurogane's sword. He'd seen that whirlwind of deadly precision in action; even using all of his magic, how could he seriously hope to defend himself against such an incarnation of death? Over and over again when he imagined the fight, it terminated with the image of himself being cut down by Kurogane's hand.

It couldn't help but spill over into the real world, as well. Although his conscious mind knew that Kurogane was not to blame, he felt an inevitable wariness whenever he was in Kurogane's presence, a jumpy tension that drove him to push Kurogane away before he could get too close. To never let the man within arm's reach of him, or to get trapped into intimate conversation. After all, if Fai wasn't careful, Kurogane would find out all his secrets; and once Kurogane knew who he really was, what he was planning to do, then his dreams of violent death would be prophetic indeed.

And yet - and yet - as terrifying as he found the vision, it had a certain attractiveness, too. He would betray them. He was the villain here, surely, the bad guy. There was a certain satisfaction in imagining Kurogane defeating him. He couldn't allow it to happen, he could not allow himself to die for so long as he had to keep his promise to Fai - and yet - didn't he deserve to die?

Was that why the dreams, in the end? Because deep down, a part of his mind wanted to be punished, and because beautiful Kurogane was the perfect avatar to punish him?

And if so, then when would he decide he'd had enough?

* * *

><p>He sat on a grassy green hillside sloping down to a wide, shimmering lake. The opposite shore was just a smudge on the horizon, the water stretching off beyond sight to either side. The water was silvery and dark where it lapped against the riverbanks, but further out the surface smoothed and reflected the clear blue of the sky. Wind soughed through the branches of the trees above, rustling the leaves and letting shifting bars of sunlight play over the grass.<p>

One thing was for sure, this was no place in his homeland, either Valeria or Ceres. It might have been some place from a past world they'd visited, but more likely it was just some idyllic landscape he'd dreamed up while imagining a peaceful place and a beautiful sky.

He heard the crunch of grass under boots, and smiled as the man came to sit beside him. Kurogane sat beside him, his stance comfortable and composed, his shoulder almost touching Fai's.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Fai said, watching the clouds hurry through the sky, constantly reshaped by the wind.

Kurogane made an affirmative _hn_, but he turned his narrow red gaze on Fai instead. "Not as beautiful as you," he said.

Fai blinked, and he turned to face Kurogane, fighting the blush that wanted to climb his cheeks. "What did you say?" he said.

"I love you," Kurogane said. "Will you marry me?"

This was a dream. Fai felt a sudden sadness overtake him as the realization clicked into place; the real Kurogane would never say such things. This was just another beautiful dream, taunting him with the visions of happiness, love that he would never have in the real world.

But here at least he could have the dream, the echo of the man that he felt so inexplicably pulled to. Here he could have the things he could never have in the real world, and until the night was over, it would be enough.

Kurogane didn't say any more, instead pushing forward and kissing him tenderly. His touch was soft, as he reached up and brushed Fai's hair back behind his ears, and the cool dampness of petals tickled his skin as the taller man tucked a flower behind his ear. Fai couldn't help but smile. Kuro-rinta was so romantic tonight.

With a hand behind his back to guide him, Kurogane laid him back on the sloping grassy hillside. He ran his other hand up under Fai's shirt and pushed it upwards, exposing Fai's chest, then bent down and licked his nipple.

He arched his back to lift his hips as Kurogane undid his trousers and tugged them down, exposing him to the cool air. He shivered for a moment in the contrast of warm sun and cool air; but then Kurogane began to lay a trail of licks and small, gentle bites down the skin of his chest and stomach. Fai reached up and laid his hand against Kurogane's hair; the short spikes tickled his palm.

His breath rasped in his throat with anticipation as Kurogane slowed, running his tongue down the crease of Fai's hip towards his groin. He strained his neck for a moment to try to watch; Kurogane's expression was focused and intent, sharp eyes narrowed as he approached his goal. His lips brushed over the head of Fai's cock and he let his head fall back with a small cry, vision swimming dizzily.

Kurogane's strong hands gripped his hips, holding him firmly down as he enveloped the tip of Fai's cock in his mouth. Fai clutched his hand in Kurogane's hair, trying to make him go faster, deeper, _something,_ but Kurogane was immovable as a rock. His hot mouth enveloped the head of Fai's cock and began to suck, while he released one hand to stroke up Fai's shaft towards the head. A wash of stars seemed to follow each stroke of his fingers, and Fai gave out a little cry as he writhed in the summer grass, overcome by feeling.

At last Kurogane lowered his mouth and sucked hard, and the sudden hard, wet pressure was too much for Fai. He cried out something that might have been Kurogane's name as he came, hot semen spurting out of him into Kurogane's welcoming mouth in glowing pulses. He fell limply back against the grass, twigs and stalks tangling in his hair, and panted.

Kurogane gradually kissed his way back up Fai's stomach, leaving a warm, sticky trail in his wake. He hovered for a moment over Fai's lips, not quite touching as his deft hands redid Fai's trousers; then he murmured "I love you," and kissed him, hot and salty.

"Mm, love you too," Fai said back, lazily content to just lie there and not move. Surely this was heaven, the beautiful sun and sky, the cool breeze coming off the lake. Kurogane pulled away, and Fai reluctantly let him go, feeling colder as soon as the warmth of the other man left his arms.

Kurogane walked away without a word, stopping under the tree. Fai sat up, brushing away grass and dirt, and looked over at him. "Kuro-rinta? What is it?"

The tall man did not look at him. Fai felt his pulse began to pound as sick dread poured through him. He'd forgotten this part. He always forgot the way the dreams ended, until the end was upon him. How could he always forget?

Kurogane reached up and pulled down on one of the tree branches with a sharp crack. With no more warning than that, he suddenly turned and began attacking Fai, whirling the broken branch like a club.

Fai barely got his arm up in front of his face before the blow landed. pain exploded through his arm, along with the sickening feeling of cracking bone, and sharp splinters dragged lacerations through his flesh. His fear screamed at him to flee, but even as he turned to run, he knew it was no use; it never was. His feet, normally so light on the earth, felt like they were mired in glue; even as he took the first few steps another blow exploded across his back, sending an agonizing pain lancing through his shoulder blade.

He rolled on his back on the sunny grass, futilely trying to shield his head from the assault. Kurogane's arm rose and fell in a brutal rhythm, each blow sending waves of pain through his arms, his torso, his legs. The back-swinging butt end of the branch caught him under his guard, and his jaw exploded in agony as he felt teeth crack and bones shatter. Blood filled his throat and he choked, sending a spray of it across the glass, then doubled over in agony as the club landed with a resounding _crack_ across his ribcage, the ribs buckling under the force of the blow.

He coughed explosively and felt wet in his lungs, and wasn't sure if the ribs had torn up his lungs, or if he'd inhaled the blood from his shattered mouth. He could hardly see, his vision hazed with red as a blow across the temple filled his cornea with blood, but he could still see the relentless rise and fall of Kurogane's arm, bringing the club down and down on his unprotected body -

* * *

><p>Fai awoke with a gasp, fighting through the usual moment of disorientation between sleep and waking. He was in the Cat's Eye Café, in their shared room above the restaurant, and Kurogane was not here tonight; he was out hunting demons with Syaoran, stalking down evil beings to deal merciless justice with his sword. Evil beings like Fai.<p>

Since he was alone, Fai did not have to worry about anyone seeing him as he crawled into a crouching position on his futon, bit down on the linen pillowcases, and just screamed silently. Tears poured down his face and his body shook, but he did not want to make a sound that would awaken Sakura, bring her running to see what was wrong. She would want to do something to help, she would want to make it right. But nothing could ever make this right.

"Why?" he said aloud, daring a hoarse, voiceless whisper into his bedclothes. "_I understand! _I can't have him. I know that I can't. I shouldn't sully him, I don't deserve him! I understand that, so why do you keep coming? Why can't you just leave me _alone?"_

The dreams came every night now, worse than ever before, as vivid and clear as reality. Even now he shook all over from the pain of the vicious beating Kurogane had delivered to him, although he knew without bothering to check that he had no real injuries. It was all in his head, his hateful, self-destructive subconscious that seemed determined to plunge him into this Purgatory every night.

Every night he relived a different brutal death at Kurogane's hands; every night, until it hardly seemed that the real thing could be worse. At least if he died for real, then it would be over and this would _stop._

But he couldn't die. No, he couldn't die, not while he still had a promise to keep to Fai. He had to keep living, and living, and no matter how he tried to resist it sleep would come, and in his dreams Kurogane would come to him. And as much as he dreaded the dreams, at the same time he longed for them; as much for the catharsis of punishment as for the sweet touches and brief moments of feeling loved.

* * *

><p>He fought sleep for as long as he could, using various techniques and tricks to stay awake. When he could avoid sleep no longer - or when the children began looking at him strangely when he would not go into his and Kurogane's shared bedrooms - he slept in light snatches, barely dozing, jerking himself awake as soon as he began to enter the dreamcycle When Kurogane was around, the low-level terror that the man'd mere presence instilled in him nowadays provided the adrenaline to keep him awake all night.<p>

The world around him seemed to go gray, sucked of life like a zombie. It didn't help that the world they were in _was_ gray, dismal and depressing even without his cataclysmic mood on top of it. They were in an "industrial" world again, like Yuuko's Japan had been; but this place had none of the vivacity and joy that he'd briefly seen in the witch's world. This city was caught in an economic depression, and the air of hopelessness that lingered around every city street and tenement only underscored their desperate plight.

They needed to earn money to buy the ornament that this world's feather was in; but so far none of them had been able to find any kind of work except for Sakura. The rest of them were left to drift around with the rest of this world's dispirited wretches, waiting in long lines for food handouts or even longer lines for hopeless interviews.

As he returned to the cheap flat they were all sharing this world, Kurogane cornered him at last, and Fai felt panic begin to overtake his glassy exhaustion as he realized he'd let himself be caught alone with the ninja.

"I know you're not sleeping," Kurogane said, his red eyes boring into Fai remorselessly. "You have nightmares. They wake you up out of a sound sleep - you've been having them ever since Koryo."

So Kurogane had been awake for his nightly performances, after all. Fai supposed it was too much to hope that he would have slept through them.

"Everyone has nightmares, Kuro-tan," he says pleasantly, feeling his mouth stretch in a careless, innocent smile. "Everyone has things in their past they'd rather not relive, don't you think? Maybe I do too. They'll go away on their own, eventually. They always do."

Red eyes narrowed, but Kurogane declined to take the bait. "Oh, yeah?" he asked. "Then why have yours been getting worse the longer we travel? First it was once a week. Now it's every night. Whatever the hell got its claws into you, it's getting stronger, and I want to know what it is."

He turned away, instinctively angling his shoulders to shield his chest and belly from the other man, and tried to slip past Kurogane towards the door. "It's none of your business, Kuro-wan," he finally managed to get out; a pathetic attempt at Kuro-baiting, but it was all he could muster right now. "Leave it be."

Kurogane's scowl deepened, and his arm shot out to grab Fai's arm, giving him a hard shake. "It is my business!" he yelled angrily. "You're part of our team! If you let yourself self-destruct like this, it's gonna affect all of us in the long run!"

Fai stared at Kurogane for a moment, before it clicked. That angry tone in Kurogane's voice - it was _worry._Kurogane was being _protective. _Of Fai.

The irony made him want to burst out laughing, or maybe burst into tears. The idea that Kurogane would want to protect Fai - it was absurd. If anything, Kurogane was who he needed to be protected from. Or perhaps it was Fai who posed the danger here. After all, wasn't he the bad guy, here?

The endless litany of self-reproach made his head throb, and the painful stinging in his exhausted eyes grew heavier. He couldn't cope with this right now, he just couldn't cope. Kurogane's painful grip on his arm was reminding him of too many nightmares, and there was a nervous quiver in his stomach that he tried hard to keep out of his voice. "Let go of me," he said, in almost a whisper.

"The hell I will," Kurogane snarled. He yanked Fai around to face him, and his other hand closed on Fai's other shoulder, completing the circuit between them, and forced Fai to look at him. "I'm not letting you run away, not this time. What the fuck are you afraid of, Fai? What's got you so terrified that you can't sleep at night without waking up screaming? What's following you on this journey that's so terrible that you can't shake it, every damn day, every night, every world? Why are you running away from - "

"You!" Fai burst out involuntarily, not able to help the full-body flinch away from Kurogane. The larger man stopped yelling, cut off midsentence, mouth hanging open in shock. "It's you!"

There was a long silence between them.

"What do you mean, it's me?" Kurogane said at last. His voice was deceptively calm.

"Let me go, Kuro-tan," Fai said softly. This time, Kurogane complied, unclenching his grip and taking a step backwards, his hands hanging stiffly by his sides.

Fai reached up to rub his arms, feeling an odd chill spread over his skin; except for the places where Kurogane's hands had been, he could feel those handprints like fire. "You're the one I dream about," he said in a near-whisper, knowing that Kurogane could hear every word. "Every night. You've gotten into my head, Kuro-tan, you've gotten into my dreams and I don't know how to get you out."

"You dream about me?" Kurogane demanded. His determined certainty was beginning to crumble around the edges into confusion. "What, what kind of dreams?"

Fai opened his mouth, meaning to say something careless to blow it off; but instead he was surprised by a swift, powerful blush that felt like his face was on fire.

Kurogane's eyebrows went up, and his expression suddenly became one of amusement. "_Those _kinds of dreams, huh?" he asked.

Fai looked away, instead, and cleared his throat, then coughed. He couldn't seem to make his voice work, so instead he gave a small nod.

The amusement on Kurogane's face quickly faded away. "But why would those dreams make you afraid of me?" he wanted to know. "Were you afraid that I'd find out somehow, and be angry?"

"Aren't you?" Fai dared to ask. Somehow, of all the reactions to confessing his nightmares, this was the one he least anticipated.

"No," Kurogane snorted. It was his turn to look away, then, and Fai spotted a reddish darkening to his cheeks. Good god, was _Kurogane_ blushing now? "I... I'm not angry. If anything - if anything, I… you're annoying as shit, mage, but… but there's something about you, you know?"

Fai blinked. Opened his mouth to speak, then stopped, and reversed a few of his assumptions. "I thought - you preferred women," he said, sounding weak even in his own ears.

Kurogane scowled, waving the consideration away. "It's not about men or women. It's just - _you,"_ he said, then snarled in exasperation. "Look, I'm not good with words. I can't explain it - this attraction. Yeah, you're good looking, but it's not just about looks, all right? It's about - what's inside." He reached out to touch Fai's chest, lightly, with the tips of his fingers. "I don't know. I can't explain."

Fai stood listening to Kurogane's stumbling monologue, too stunned to know how to respond. He was getting too close - too close to the things he wanted, too close to the things he feared. He wanted to run away, to give himself space to recover - but Kurogane was still standing there.

But Kurogane was still thinking it through, and his expression was gradually turning stern. "But that's not all there is to it, is it?" he asked. "Or you wouldn't be terrified of me."

"No," Fai admitted in a small voice. He closed his eyes and swallowed, before managing to say in a breathless rush. "In the dreams... you kill me. Afterwards. Every night. Always... in a different way, but you kill me."

There was no response to this. Nervously, Fai opened his eyes again, in order to take in Kurogane's expression. He'd gone dangerously stony and offended, and Fai's pulse began to speed up in the face of his anger.

"Is that really what you think of me?" Kurogane finally said. "'I've never so much as scratched you, not for all the pain in the ass you've been to me since this journey started. I've fought beside you, watched your back and helped you when you were down." His expression was righteously annoyed, indignation struggling to cover real hurt; but he couldn't keep a certain pained desperation from leaking into his voice. "Isn't that enough to gain your trust? What more _would be?"_

"I don't know. It's just a dream, Kuro-tan," Fai said wearily. He couldn't explain it to Kurogane, couldn't explain what he barely understood about himself; how he both wanted and feared the dreams, dreaded violence and pain and yet craved it. "I can't control my dreams. I know it's got nothing to do with you, it's not your problem. You can't help it if - I understand that there might be circumstances where - never mind." He was saying too much, getting dangerously close to what he could never say. "Never mind. Don't worry about it."

Kurogane didn't answer, and after a moment of waiting, Fai decided that he couldn't bear to continue this conversation any longer. He turned to go, but froze at a step behind him and a hand on his arm.

This time, however, Kurogane's grip was not hard or punishing; it was light, almost gentle. He stared at Kurogane with wide eyes as Kurogane's hand slid down his forearm to clasp his own hand, then bring it up between them as he looked Fai squarely in the eyes.

"I'd never hurt you," Kurogane said firmly. "Never."

"You can't promise that, Kuro-chi," Fai's voice cracked out in a whisper, startling even him; no, no, he hadn't meant to say that much.

"I can promise it. I swear," Kurogane insisted. "Whatever you're hiding, whatever's in your past that you're so ashamed or afraid of - that's none of my business. I don't care. There's nothing you could have done that would make me hurt you. Do you understand? _Nothing._"

Fai felt a sudden urge to hit his head against the wall. Kurogane was so mule-headed, so stubbornly convinced that he was right and that Fai was just being irrational and overstating the case. Kurogane was a good man, one who cared deeply underneath his gruff façade. But Fai knew that it was precisely that loyalty that was the problem - that Kurogane would never, ever be able to forgive what Fai was going to have to do.

"Nothing, Kuro-chi?" Fai challenged, his voice ragged. "Can you really promise that? Is there _nothing_ in _all the worlds_ that I could do that would change your mind?"

Kurogane started to automatically retort, but then paused, as some of the edge in Fai's voice seemed to penetrate. He sat back a little, frowning as his eyes searched Fai's intently, but he did not loosen his grip on Fai's hand.

"If you hurt the kid," he said finally, in a grudging voice. "If you hurt the princess. If you tried to do some harm to my homeworld. Just those things. Nothing else. But I know you wouldn't. You're a good person, I know that much from watching you. Hell, you don't even like to hurt your enemies - and I see how much you love the kids. I know for damn sure that you'd never turn on them."

Fai felt tears threaten, had to fight them back. Just as he thought, just as he'd always thought, Kurogane had laid down the line and he was on the wrong side of it. Those things that Kurogane claimed were impossible, Fai knew were inevitable, and -

Wait. Fai did a fast rewind of Kurogane's little speech. "Syaoran and Sakura?" he echoed, translating Kuro-speak into real names. "If I hurt either of _them?_ What about _you?"_

"What about me?" Kurogane growled.

"You're not included in that list?" Fai said disbelievingly.

Kurogane didn't answer right away; his jaw worked, and Fai's head reeled with confusion. Why, why the delay? This should be a simple answer. Of course anyone would defend themselves, if one of their companions betrayed them, tried to kill -

"No," Kurogane said at last, gruffly and abruptly. "I'm not."

Fai stared at his companion as though he'd grown another head. "But - why?" he asked in astonishment.

A hard hand gripped his chin, and Kurogane was glaring into his eyes from a very short distance. "Dumbass," he snarled. "Don't you get it? Because… you're important to me. More important than my own safety nowadays. Don't ask me how it happened, but it did."

While Fai was still boggling over that, poleaxed, Kurogane took advantage of his momentary instability, leaned in, and kissed him.

It was a long, slow kiss, and none of Fai's dreams had gotten it quite right; he was firm and unhesitant, but not harsh, not brutal. He took command of Fai's mouth and his arms slid up Fai's sides; before Fai quite knew what had happened, he was melting against Kurogane like wax left in the sun.

Kurogane broke away, studying his face from only inches away. "You're important to me," he repeated, softer now. "I don't hurt what's mine to protect, and I don't let anyone else hurt them either. I'd rather take my sword and cut off my own arm than lay a hand on you."

"You wouldn't -" Fai spluttered, jolted and alarmed by Kurogane's declaration.

"No," Kurogane said firmly. "That's the whole point, I _wouldn't. _Wouldn't hurt you." And he kissed Fai again.

While still doing his best to keep Fai robbed of air, Kurogane propelled them both backwards until the back of Fai's knees hit the bed. His hands on Fai's sides guided him firmly down, then rose up and with businesslike efficiency began undoing the buttons on Fai's shirt.

Fai resisted. "Kuro-pon, don't -" He brought his own hands up to grab Kurogane's, stilling him in his actions - but not yet pulling them away.

"You owe this to me," Kurogane said challengingly, looking him directly in the eye. "You owe it to me for mistrusting me, for dreaming that I would ever do that to you."

Fai flushed and looked away, not willing to meet Kurogane's eyes, but he didn't let go of Kurogane's hands, either. "It doesn't work like that," he objected. "I can't help what happens in my dreams. It wasn't like I meant to insult you or - anything like that, I just - "

"Hm," Kurogane said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing; probably as close as Fai would ever get from the proud ninja to an admission that he was wrong. He left off the lacings of the shirt, and raised one big palm to cup Fai's jaw, rough warmth caressing his skin as he tilted Fai's face up to meet his gaze. "Then tell me you don't want this," Kurogane demanded. "Tell me you don't want me, and I'll walk away from you right now and never bother you again."

Fai opened his mouth; nothing came out of it but a croak. He flushed bright red, and had to gulp for air several times before he could make his voice work. "I… do want you," was the only thing that his mouth would let him whisper. "Please."

"Heh." Red eyes narrowed, and the corner of Kurogane's mouth crooked up; the first smile, Fai would swear, that he'd ever seen on him outside the battlefield. "Thought as much."

The bed creaked when it took both their weight; it was kind of a crappy piece of furniture at the best of times, with sagging springs and a rusty frame. Right now, though, Fai couldn't have cared less; it was a soft place to sit down and let Kurogane straddle his legs, his expression fierce and intent as he began working at undoing Fai's clothes. Fai let him, breathless with anticipation as he traded buttons for kisses on Kurogane's hands and arms.

Once his shirt was off his shoulders, tossed carelessly to the corner, Kurogane stood up and doffed his own shirt, then fell to undoing his pants. Fai felt a shiver of heat go down his spine as Kurogane's proud, upright erection was revealed, and had to close his eyes for a moment to fight to control the rush of blood to his face. He would _not_ blush like a schoolgirl, dammit… even if this felt more like a pounding hunger than shyness or embarrassment.

Now naked, Kurogane took charge again as he pushed Fai back against the mattress and climbed to kneel astride him. His larger body covered Fai's, and for a moment Fai felt a twinge of fear as flashes of his nightmares replayed to him. But one of Fai's hands crept up to clasp with his, their twined hands resting on the sheets, and the other one began to stroke down his chest and stomach.

"Got anything?" Kurogane murmured, nibbling along the line of his jaw as he fingered Fai's erection. Fai twisted his hips and moaned softly, not at first making sense of the comment.

"Mm… what?" he asked, somewhat disoriented.

"To use as lube. You know," Kurogane said. "If you're not up to it, we don't have to… but I'd really, really like to fuck you."

Fai choked out a giggle, quickly stifling it when Kurogane's red eyes narrowed in mock offense. "I didn't exactly plan for this, you know," he said tartly.

"Huh. Really?" Kurogane said in a suspicious tone, his breath hot and soft against the side of Fai's neck. "I wouldn't have put it past you. You're always up to no good -"

Fai decided to ignore this. "Well, it's not ideal - but, um, there's some hand lotion in the drawer. Next time I go out shopping, I can find something else."

"Next time," Kurogane breathed in his ear. "I like the sound of that."

Reluctantly Kurogane disentangled them, at least far enough to stretch over to the nightstand and fumble out the requisite lotion. Fai propped his legs apart and closed his eyes, waiting, and tried to decide if the wild pounding of his heart was passion or terror, or both. And what was he really afraid of, anyway? That Kurogane would hurt him - or that he wouldn't, and that he would actually get what he wanted?

Kurogane slid back into place, propping one of Fai's legs over his shoulders as he spread his fingers and hand with the slick lotion. Fai squirmed uncomfortably at the intrusion of slippery fingers, but it really felt too good for him to want to stop.

At last Kurogane positioned himself between Fai's thighs, and Fai hissed as the hard head of his cock began to penetrate him. Kurogane went slowly, but it was hard, trying to relax enough to stop the uncomfortable burn of penetration.

"Hey," Kurogane said, and his voice sounded breathless, impulsive. "When all this is over - when we've finished collecting the princess's feathers and it's time to go home -"

"Hmm?" was all Fai could manage, delirious from heat and sensation.

"Come with me," Kurogane whispered. He dropped short, hot, wet kisses over Fai's chest, his collarbone, his neck. "Back to Nihon. Come _live_ with me."

A bolt of cold shot through his chest, jolting him back down to reality. He opened his eyes to see Kurogane's strained face, eyes closed and brows knitted, floating above his. His heart gave a startled thump, affection and longing and anxiety. "I… no, I can't," he mumbled. "I have to keep… I can't…"

"You can't go back to your own world. I know," Kurogane finished for him. "But you can't keep going from world to world forever, you know. Eventually the witch is gonna take that thing she's created back, and you'll have to stop traveling. Why not choose where to stop?"

"But Ashura -" Fai bit his tongue a moment too late to stop the word from escaping him. Tears blurred his eyes, and he blinked furiously against them.

"I _know," _Kurogane insisted, and Fai wanted to scream at him: no, you don't know. You can't know.

But Kurogane ignored the unheard denial, and kissed Fai again, on the mouth this time, exchanging his breath and taste with Fai. "But no matter how much you want to, you can't run forever," he said in a whisper. "Someday, if he wants to bad enough, he'll find you… and when he does, I want to be by your side."

Sometime in the interim while they'd talked, while Fai had been distracted, he'd relaxed enough to be ready to move. "I told you," Kurogane said, and as he spoke he began to move his hips again, long slow powerful thrusts that traveled all the way up Fai's spine. "I don't let anyone else hurt what's mine to protect."

Just like that, something clicked in Fai's mind, and all his confused feelings from the past week came into sharp relief. _This_ was why he'd found Kurogane so attractive, so compelling from the start, even though all sense and logic told him that he should remain aloof. Kurogane was powerful and dangerous, it was true; but it was not the random brutality of a thug. His danger came from his will to protect, his power was to lend aid and shelter to those he treasured. And what Fai wanted, craved with every fiber of his being, was to be so treasured.

He felt that now, sheltered under Kurogane's body and cradled between his arms. Kurogane's strong chest loomed above him, covering him, and his cock filled Fai with an unbearable heat and hardness that stopped just short of being painful. He wanted it, he wanted more.

Breathing air that felt like fire between them, Fai wrapped his arms around Kurogane's shoulders and used that leverage to pull himself up, pressing his forehead against Kurogane's. The change of angle caused Kurogane to brush against the sensitive place inside of him, and he gasped and convulsively tightened his grip on Kurogane's shoulders.

"Heh," Kurogane said, and he sounded as out of breath as Fai felt.

"Yes," Fai moaned. He sounded utterly wanton, and he didn't care. "More, please…"

Kurogane began to rock his hips up into Fai's, sending a rhythm between them. Fai felt his fingers slipping through the sweat on his back, and on a sudden impulse he raised his head and licked a line through the sweat sheening Kurogane's forehead. It tasted salty and bitter, and delicious.

"Hey, don't lick me," Kurogane grumbled, moving his head away, but there was no heat to it. "Taking that damn nickname… too seriously. If you start meowing… we're done here…"

Fai laughed softly and then arched his spine, tilting his hips at just the right angle while Kurogane thrust again, and again, just a bit deeper…

His orgasm came like a burst of light traveling up his stomach from his pelvis, and his toes curled as his back went taut. "Yes, Kuro- _Kuro…"_

Kurogane groaned raggedly and increased his own pace; through the delicious haze of orgasm he felt Kurogane's body shudder, heard him growl as he bore Fai down into the mattress.

When Kurogane collapsed on top of him, temporarily boneless, he couldn't fail to feel _that; _but as heavy as the man was, just for a moment, he reveled in it. For once he felt absolutely good; sheltered, safe, complete.

"Hey," Fai said softly, his voice failing across the sound of their mixed breathing. He swallowed, restoring moisture to a throat gone dry. "About - about what you said, Kuro-koi. About… going back to your world, afterwards. I think that I…"

He raised his eyes to meet Kurogane's, and the words died on his lips. Kurogane's expression had gone remote, implacable.

_No - oh, no -_

With his heavy weight still crushing Fai to the mattress, Kurogane raised his hands and wrapped them around Fai's throat. Fai's gasp was cut off as his grip began to close, the hands that could shatter rock beginning to crush the fragile tissues of his throat.

Fai's nails scratched uselessly at the back of Kurogane's hands as his vision began to waver, dim and blur. He couldn't breathe, face swelling with blocked blood, black and red stars exploding across his vision. His throat was a ring of agony, a terrible grating sound beginning to come from the bones in the back of his neck. Red eyes, Kurogane's eyes, boring down on him from above. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't -

* * *

><p>Fai opened his eyes alone in the darkness, his cheeks wet with tears.<p>

* * *

><p>~end.<p> 


	2. Epilogue: Where Are They Now?

Fifty Ways to Kill Your Lover, Coda: Life in the years after.

Written because Reikah demanded a happy ending.

* * *

><p>They made love slowly, lazily in the rainy afternoon. There was not much else to do; this being Nihon's rainy month most outdoor pastimes were suspended as the gutters ran high in the streets and the skies opened up with a steady rumble for most hours out of every day. It had been so last year, and would likely be so again next year. It felt strange, being able to rely on something like that; the fixed patterns of the weather, of the seasons. They had spent so long moving from one world to the next that the idea that something could be the same after a whole year was still an astonishing novelty to them.<p>

Kurogane liked it, though. And although he whined constantly about the rain in the spring, the heat in the summer and the soggy abundance of snowfall in the winter, Kurogane suspected that Fai liked it too.

There was no more hurry, no urgency in their sex. They'd been lovers for years, by now, and had time to learn each others' ways and rhythms, their good points and sensitive points. More importantly - despite the fact that both of them had long deeply-buried fears of the ones they loved abandoning them - they'd both had time to learn that the other wasn't going away.

Afterwards, though, while Kurogane lay on their futon and dozed, Fai got up. He pulled a light robe around himself and left the room; quietly so as not to disturb Kurogane, but it wasn't like the ninja could fail to notice his departure. His eyes fluttered open and he stared at the crossbeams of the ceiling, hearing the raindrops thrumming against the roof steadily, before he finally growled and rolled over to the edge of the mattress. While he really would have preferred to laze about or possibly take a nap, instead he had to go looking to the damned mage again.

It was the damned dreams. Kurogane had hoped that after all this time, they would finally leave Fai in peace, but it seemed not. They would go months without one, and then with no apparent trigger he'd have one or two in a week. For a while after having the dreams, Fai would get restless and agitated after sex, and not want to stay; he'd always go and find something else to do for a while, and flinch away if Kurogane tried to touch him. Kurogane knew why, knew that it wasn't really him that Fai was afraid of, but it still hurt like a dagger in his stomach to see Fai cringe away from his touch.

He found Fai in the castle's music room, now quiet and still between rehearsals, staring out the open shouji door into the rain falling across the garden. He had a koto in his lap but seemed in no hurry to do anything with it, just tracing his fingers absently along the scrollwork surrounding the soundbox.

Kurogane stood by the door and just watched him for a while. He knew better than to crowd Fai at times like these. "Hey," he said, softly announcing his presence.

Fai turned towards him and smiled at him, and even now, even now the sight of that sweet smile put a lump in Kurogane's throat. "Hey there, lover," he said in his light, husky voice. "Not sleeping?"

"You weren't there."

Fai's smile faded a little, and sadness clouded his eyes, although it wasn't enough to destroy his underlying happiness. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize," Kurogane said gruffly. "I don't want you to apologize for shit like this. I hate seeing you suffer."

Fai put aside the koto and stood up, walked over to Kurogane and put his hand on his cheek. "I'm all right," he said softly.

Kurogane closed his eyes and put his hand up too, resting lightly over Fai's. "I hate seeing you suffer," he repeated quietly, "and knowing it's partly my fault."

"It's not your fault," Fai said quietly but firmly. "It was never your fault. These dreams started before you and I ever got together. It's all in my head, not yours."

Kurogane knew that, he knew it as well as Fai did but that didn't make the feelings of sorrow and regret go away. "I was a bit of a brute back then," he said ruefully.

Fai laughed, and while it was a conscious attempt to lighten the mood, it wasn't entirely fake. "You were just being your grouchy puppy self," he said in a light tone. "And I wouldn't have you any other way."

"I wouldn't have hurt you, even back then," Kurogane said. It was an assurance he'd repeated many times, so many times that it had become its own ritual between them, like Fai's nicknames.

Fai nodded, accepting the assurance as he always did. "I know," he said. "I know it now, and I knew it back then, too. But knowing something in your head doesn't make the thoughts and feelings go away."

Kurogane knew that well. He sighed, sliding down to sit on one of the wooden benches lining the room. His joints creaked; although it was hard for either of them to tell how much time really had passed, during their journey, he knew he was starting to feel the years before Fai was.

"I wish I could make the dreams go away," he said sincerely. He did. He hated that Fai still had nightmares of dying, that he still could not bear to be in Kurogane's presence immediately after sex for the old constant trauma that the nightmares had burned into him. He hated, in a corner of his mind, that Fai still could not fully trust him enough to let the old ghosts of fear and punishment rest. He felt guilty for that, blaming Fai for something the mage could not control. But just knowing something was untrue in your head didn't make it go away. "I just don't want you to be in pain any more."

"I'm alive, Kuro-pon," Fai said seriously. "Surviving always entails some pain; only the dead are beyond it. It's all right. I get them less often now every year, even if they're never fully gone. And I know they're not real, so I don't let them bother me."

"But - when you're having the dream itself," Kurogane said, worrying over the topic like a dog with a bone, still not quite able to let it go. "How can you know?"

Fai smiled and took hold of Kurogane's hand, bringing it up to rest on his own chest, above his breastbone. "I know," he said. "Because in the dreams, I can't _feel_ you."

Kurogane remembered now. It was another marking that had never gone away, this one of the time Fai had spent transformed into a vampire, drinking Kurogane's blood to survive. A bond had developed between them then, between predator and prey, so that one had always known exactly where the other was.

Fai no longer needed to drink his blood to survive, and over time the prey bond had faded. But not, for Fai, faded completely.

Kurogane focused on the feel of Fai's heartbeat beneath his fingers. He looked into Fai's eyes, clear and blue and honest. That was all right, then. Let one scar heal the other. Moments of pain and sadness still came and went, like thunderclouds, but Fai's life was still a happy one.

"Are you ready to go back now?" he asked.

"I think so," Fai said. He stood and held out his hand, helping Kurogane up from the bench.

His hand still in Fai's, Kurogane led the way back into the castle.

* * *

><p>~end.<p> 


End file.
